Mumpower to leave Republican party if bill passes

Friday

Apr 26, 2013 at 5:33 PM

In an email to "Asheville city Republicans and other concerned citizens" about the "theft of Asheville City Water system," Carl Mumpower says he will leave the party if Republicans in Raleigh support legislation to combine Asheville's water system with utilities in Henderson and Buncombe counties.

From staff reports

In an email to "Asheville city Republicans and other concerned citizens" about the "theft of Asheville City Water system," Carl Mumpower says he will leave the party if Republicans in Raleigh support legislation to combine Asheville's water system with utilities in Henderson and Buncombe counties. "The Republican majority in Raleigh, under the local leadership of Republican state Representatives Tim Moffitt, Nathan Ramsey and Chuck McGrady, are in the process of conducting an act of malfeasance meriting challenge," Mumpower says in the email. "The unprecedented use of eminent domain to seize a city-owned water system reveals a party power structure indifferent to the principles upon which that party is founded." Mumpower of Asheville is a former member of Asheville's City Council and his district's 2008 Republican nominee for Congress. "Should my fellow Republicans in Raleigh (choose) to support this destructive, unprincipled, and unprecedented legislative action, I will take the only step I have in hand to express my concern for that act of misplaced integrity and resign from the Republican Party," Mumpower says in the email. "I will further call on Asheville citizens registered as Republicans and others at large who are concerned with the erosion of principle in our party to do the same."